The two sides faced a midnight strike deadline at Northern Tier Energy, but a mediator helped them reach a deal.

Union and company negotiators reached a tentative agreement about 5 p.m. Tuesday, averting a strike that had been called to begin at midnight at the Northern Tier Refinery in St. Paul Park.

[Riley] would not give details of the agreement, saying he wanted union members to see the proposal first. But he said leadership is recommending that the rank and file approve the deal. “It addresses safety issues, it addresses pay cuts,” he said of the tentative three-year contract.

The union, which represents refinery operators, maintenance workers and others, had said that management wanted to cut some workers’ pay, eliminate jobs and undermine seniority in a way that compromises safetVisit Minneapolis Star Tribune for full article

Maybe no one, because the negotiations were about pay cuts, not raises.

Even so, let's be generous and say the 190 workers got a whopping $10,000 in pay and benefits per year. Round that up to $2 million. Using the company's stated production and utilization rates from 2012, the refinery makes about a billion gallons of product each year. They claim a 3:2:1 crack spread, so they make about 760 million gallons of gasoline in a year. So that pay package would cost the consumer about two-tenths of a cent per gallon - less when you spread it over the sales of diesel, jet fuel, kerosene, propane, butane, heating oil, asphalt, ...